Amid all the noise and hype on the Internet today, not many people realize that all the ideas and techniques you can find are petty much useless if you don't first understand your business model. In other words, even the most amazing Internet marketing technique will not work if you don't understand how to apply it to YOUR business.
The 3 most popular business models are:1) Affiliate Marketing
This is perhaps the most popular one out there, since there are absolutely no barriers to entry. Almost anyone can sign-up for an affiliate program for free and start promoting the product or service on the Internet with hopes that someone will buy, giving them instant commissions. Affiliate marketers don't carry any risk, since they do not pay for the creation of the product, they do not handle customer service and they do not need any up-front investments.
When you consider that those are the top three things people want to avoid, it's no surprise that almost everyone and their neighbor promotes an affiliate program or another. In fact, if there is a single reason why the Internet today is so proliferated with ads and banners, it's because of affiliate programs.
Even though there are so many affiliate marketers out there, only 5% ever make any money and only 1% makes big money. The "Super Affiliates" do it very differently from all the other millions; therefore they earn the big checks.
2) E-book and Information PublishingSitting at the other end of the spectrum, e-book authors need to be more disciplined in their approach to Internet marketing. Of course, they also need to invest more than affiliates do. While affiliates can get away trying to "get something for nothing" the same is not true for the e-book type of business.
If you're thinking about publishing and selling your own e-book online, and you think it's going to be easy, think again. You'll need to learn a lot more than affiliates are required to. You'll need to spend some amount of money getting your business up and running. However, when you do it right, the payoff in this online business model is much more rewarding.
The reason why e-book marketers and "Infopreneurs" make more money is simple; they have very, very low production and maintenance costs. Anything digital doesn't cost a single cent to be produced in millions if necessary. Whatever initial start-up costs spent can be covered by selling just a few copies of high-margin e-books, and you can even recruit an army of affiliates who are more than willing to do all the selling for you.
Of course, it's not as easy as it sounds, but the point is, when done properly, the "E-book Publishing" model is a truly profitable business.3) Internet Based Network Marketing
I've heard many people say that the Internet and network marketing are a match made in heaven. In my opinion, though, almost 90% of people get it wrong when it comes to Internet based network marketing. People in this business usually think they're talking about network marketing, but in reality they are talking about affiliate marketing.
They try to make the Internet do all the work. They hide behind their computers and pretend everything's going great. They focus on selling more and more every month. They have systems that are so complicated only they can understand it. Well, that doesn't sound like network marketing to me!
Internet based network marketing is simple if you understand it, and are willing to put in the effort. The role of the Internet here is only to get you the names and contact details of people you can talk to, after which YOU, not a computer, has to build a relationship with these people and help them to start their own business.
For this simple purpose, it is not necessary for you to have a high-tech system and pretend that your auto responder is building relationships for you. It's not going to work. The key is to have simple systems that are duplicable, something you can teach to all those people you have built a relationship with.
E-book authors, no matter what they say, have no obligation to teach you their "Secret Strategies to Become a Millionaire of any variations to that. The reason is simple; why tell you the absolute truth when you'll end up as their competitor? No one wants more competitors, right?
Internet based network marketing is very much the opposite of that. You HAVE to tell people EVERYTHING you know or your business will never take off. For this reason alone, I always recommend that if you're new to the online world, you need to first join an Internet based network-marketing business at least to learn. Rest assured, no one will be selling you half-baked truths when their success ultimately depends on yours.
No matter which model you choose, make sure you understand the basics, and stop listening to and buying things that are not applicable to your business. Information overload can stop you before you even get started.